Logan Airport 9/11 Memorial

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When I was in Boston a while back, I spent a couple of nights at a hotel right at Logan Airport, a short skybridge trek from the main terminal. It turned out that the airport's 9/11 memorial was across the street, so I made a brief visit to it. Both of the planes that hit the World Trade Center towers took off from Logan Airport, and many of the passengers and crew aboard the planes were from Boston, so a memorial of some sort was obviously needed. But dealing with such a sensitive topic wouldn't be easy, and the local authorities didn't rush it. The memorial didn't open until 2008, and it's striking for how delicately, even gingerly, the memorial design treats its subject. I'm not sure I would have found it at all if my hotel hadn't been next to it. It's not in a place where airport visitors will stumble across it unexpectedly while going about their business. It has to be sought out deliberately. If you persevere and locate it, you'll see a landscaped plot with several paths, and a small glass cube set well back from the street. There's a small plaque indicating this is the memorial, and an inscription on the sidewalk refers obliquely to "the events of September 11th, 2001". The long winding paths aren't in any hurry to get you to the cube, and meander around the landscaped area. When you get to the cube, nothing about its exterior says "memorial" at all. Only once you're inside do you see the lists of names of those on the two flights. As you might imagine, the memorial's lightly visited. In the few days I was there, I didn't see a single person (other than myself) visit it.

Of course not everyone's a fan. It made a conspiracy site's list of the "Top 5 Worst 9/11 Memorials", which points out that this memorial strongly resembles an Apple store. I will allow that this is true. It's actually a decent list, and a couple of the others on the list are genuinely terrible. Although from the site's standpoint anything that doesn't say "false flag" probably counts as a bad memorial.

I started out thinking this was a strange memorial myself, and considered writing a snarky post complaining about it. Then I started thinking, ok, what would I have done differently, if somehow I'd gotten the job to design it? Would it be a better memorial if it didn't tiptoe around the subject quite so much? Maybe if it was somewhere in the airport where travelers -- who might be afraid of flying anyway -- could stumble across it and be surprised? If it was anything at all like the hideous 9/11 memorial in Portland that I griped about a few years ago? Well, no, none of the above. I get that it's a sensitive topic. This post sat around in Drafts for about a year, while I tried to figure out the right tone and the right timing. I didn't want to post it near 9/11 (since I've already said everything I ever want to about that day), or too close to any of our many military-themed holidays, and then I put it on extended hold after the Boston Marathon bombing so as not to seem exploitative. So like the actual designers, I'm pretty sure I would have erred on the side of endless trigger warnings and chances to back out, and the most understated and least graphic treatment I could pull off without seeming to downplay the "events". And I probably would have said "events".

Gov. Atiyeh Statue, Portland Airport

At the far end of Portland International Airport's international concourse is a statue of former Governor Vic Atiyeh, who was governor of Oregon from 1978-1987. He was famous at the time for international trade missions, forever flying to Japan and points across Asia trying to interest them in Oregon products and tourism and so forth. Hence the statue of him standing in the middle of the terminal, looking like his flight's been delayed. Portland Public Art devoted a short post to the sculpture, which is by the same guy who created the Vera Katz statue on the Eastbank Esplanade. The post is sort of lukewarm about the statue, saying "its mundanity, its general ordinariness is disconcerting". I actually like that about it; it seems to capture its subject more accurately that way. I mean, I only met him once, briefly, and I was one of a hundred or so Cub Scouts in the room, and I don't claim to have been a keen judge of character then (or now for that matter), but I recall he seemed like a nice man and he didn't act as though talking to us was a waste of his precious time or anything. If the sculptor had gone the traditional 19th century route and made a larger-than-life equestrian statue, with the governor in fantasy Roman emperor garb, now that would be a disconcerting thing to find in the middle of the Portland airport.

As of right now (2013), Oregon hasn't seen a Republican governor since Atiyeh left office. A recent Steve Duin column waxed nostalgic about the Atiyeh era, when politicians of both parties supposedly all worked together for the common good and so forth. I'm not sure how true that really was, but the end of his second term was also the beginning of the end of the state's traditional (and once-dominant) Republican party, business-friendly and socially (and temperamentally) moderate. In this polarized age, it's hard to imagine Oregon Republicans nominating an Arab-American of Syrian descent, much less reelecting him after he raised the state income tax to patch a hole in the budget. The party nominated moderate Republicans again in 1986 and 1990, losing narrowly both times. In the 1990 election, a far-right candidate drew 13% of the vote, more than enough to tip the election to Barbara Roberts, the Democratic nominee. The party got the message and spent the next few elections nominating a series of right-wing whackaloons for the top job. The last couple of elections have seen a return to sorta-moderate candidates, albeit ones with limited political experience and little charisma. Oregon Republican primaries tend to be rather brutal affairs, and the typical winning strategy is to tack as far to the right as possible in the primary, and immediately scurry back toward the center once you win the primary, and hope the public forgets all about your primary-season persona. The last couple of elections have been closer than the nutjob era of Bill Sizemore and Kevin Mannix, but they still can't seem to get over the top. It's possible that there just aren't as many moderate Republicans and true independent swing voters as there once were. I'm not really a swing voter, to be honest. I'm a registered Democrat of a liberal to left-leaning persuasion. When it comes to future elections, I'm not inclined to absolutely rule out voting for anyone or any party; I've even quietly voted for the 'R' in a couple of cases, albeit in cases where they had absolutely no chance of winning, just to keep the winner's margin of victory somewhat less absurd. My ideal world is one in which the Republican candidate keeps losing by a slim and hard-fought 51% to 49% margin, forcing the Democrats to nominate quality candidates and build reasonably professional campaign organizations. The D's have gotten careless over the years, seeming to think they just own the Governor's office, leading to lazy candidates (*cough* Kulongoski *cough*) and flabby poorly-run campaigns. At this rate, one of these cycles they're bound to screw it up and we'll be stuck with a shrieking flat-earther for four years. Which is a terrifying idea.

dawn, charlotte airport

When I flew to Norfolk, Virginia for the LADEE launch last month, I took a redeye flight with an early morning layover at Charlotte, NC's Douglas Airport, because it was US Airways and basically all of their flights connect through Charlotte. Taking the jump of 3 time zones into account, this meant that I was navigating an unfamiliar airport at about 3am my time, after a few fitful hours of trying to sleep on the plane.

The sun was just starting to come up as I waited for my connecting flight from CLT to ORF, and since the airport's due west of downtown Charlotte, there was a nice view of the downtown skyline with a multicolored pre-dawn sky behind it. I will freely admit that these are almost certainly not the best sunrise-in-Charlotte photos ever taken. I'm just pleased (and kind of surprised) that groggy 3am me thought to take photos at all. So here they are.

Updated: I just realized I accidentally took a short video clip, too, so I've added it to the post. It's not any worse than the photos, I'll say that for it.

The other thing I should point out is that most of the tall buildings in downtown Charlotte are headquarters of horrible megabanks, companies that bear a big chunk of the responsibility for detonating the global economy in 2008. Nobody's been held accountable; in fact they've gotten even bigger after getting bailed out at taxpayer expense. Grr.

Sunset, Phoenix Airport

Another old photo, taken while waiting for a connecting flight at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. You can tell it's an old photo because the plane carries the logo of the late, unlamented America West Airlines. I can't really put my finger on why I like this photo. I wasn't a fan of the airline, or the airport, and Phoenix has never been my favorite city on the face of the earth either. Maybe it's the connecting flight thing. It's not that I prefer or even really like connecting flights. There's just something about stopping briefly in a city you'd never visit otherwise that somehow makes it feel like you're really traveling. Is that weird?

Chicago Midway Airport

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A few hurried Blackberry photos from Chicago Midway Airport, taken on my way to Cleveland back in March. I'll be the first to say these aren't quality photos, but I should point out that the greasy fingerprint over the lens was caused by a genuine Chicago Italian beef sandwich. So, you know, local flavor. I'm going to argue that, thanks to the aforementioned fingerprint, the photos count as a "found object" piece, or possibly a collage, and are therefore an expression of Art with a capital A, and anyone who says they suck in a traditional photographic sense is an ignorant philistine. That's my argument, and I'm sticking to it.

I get bored quickly in airports, and I have this ongoing idea that I really ought to go seek out whatever local color there happens to exist within the airport's confines. In the case of the Midway airport, that involved the sandwich I mentioned earlier, plus tracking down a historical exhibit about the Battle of Midway, for which the airport was renamed in 1949. So in case you were wondering, the name doesn't refer to the airport being the midway point in your trip, despite what flying Southwest might lead you to believe. Although that does happen to be the reason Midway Island (at the far northern end of the Hawaiian Islands) is named what it is.

On a more obscure historical note, the airport also has a small plaque commemorating a 1933 trans-Atlantic flight. Chicago pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girenas, in their plane named the "Lituanica" attempted to fly nonstop from New York to Kaunas, Lithuania, only to crash in Germany, just short of their destination. Both pilots were killed in the accident. I had never heard of this flight before, possibly for that reason, but apparently the men are considered national heroes in Lithuania, and the main soccer stadium in Kaunas was renamed in their honor after the USSR broke up.

kansas city airport

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A few photos from the Kansas City Airport, taken during a layover on my way back from Florida. It was supposed to be a 2 hour layover, but it expanded into most of a day when our original plane developed mechanical issues.



I quickly realized this was not going to be my favorite airport in the world. The Wikipedia link above mentions that the airport design was TWA's 1960s vision of the "Airport of the Future", a glamorous jet-setting hub for globe-crossing 747s and SSTs. Part of this vision was the idea that you could pretty much drive right up to the gate and hop on the plane with as little hassle as possible. Which might have been really convenient and fabulous at one time, but wedge in some modern TSA gates and bulky security-theater gear, and it becomes a confusing, claustrophobic sort of place.

I actually had to leave the secured zone just to find a hot meal (and, ok, a margarita or two), and had to go back through security -- complete with a full body scanner -- to get back to my gate. Later (as the layover dragged on), I discovered there was supposed to be a Boulevard brewpub somewhere else in the airport & thought I'd track it down. But not only would I have had to pass through security at least one more time, I'd also have to take a shuttle bus to another terminal. So I reluctantly chalked that one up as impractical. Which was a shame, since the food options at the airport are pretty minimal otherwise. I was really hoping there would be a reasonably authentic barbecue joint somewhere in the airport, being Kansas City and all, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case.



If you don't want the security gate hassle, all they've got are some snack bars -- cold sandwiches, fruit plates, that sort of thing. Oh, and beer. That was one nice thing about the place: They're operating under Missouri liquor laws, which are about the most lenient in the nation other than Louisiana and Nevada. So I walked over to a snack bar and got a fruit plate and a semi-local IPA. They have to open the can for you, but then you can just carry the beer back to the gate to enjoy at your leisure (although you can't bring your open beer with you onto your plane, apparently). So there's that, anyway.



Oh, and here's a sign you won't see at the Portland airport. I kept overhearing people -- like myself just passing through -- muttering the word "tornado", like it's the one solid fact people from either coast know about the Midwest, and they don't like the sound of it. Which is amusing considering the East Coast has hurricanes, and the West Coast has earthquakes and even volcanoes, and that doesn't seem to scare people away. I think the Midwest needs better PR people or something.